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by delhuillier



Series: Crucible [9]
Category: Fire Emblem Heroes
Genre: Morph!Kiran, Other, genderless Kiran
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-24 21:42:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20021482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delhuillier/pseuds/delhuillier
Summary: For Alfonse, the failure to kill Surtr is one more failure on top of too many others.





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It’s a dreary atmosphere that reigns over their little group as they traverse the portal from Múspell to Nifl, and then from Nifl to Askr, one fuelled by their failure to quench Surtr’s flames. Fortunately, they had taken no losses (and indeed, the Rite of Frost had made Surtr almost pitifully weak), but the sweet taste of their short-lived victory had long turned bitter in their mouths. 

_Like the phoenix...I am born anew!_

Fjorm had told him what the son of the Ice Dragon, Guðmundr, had said: a derisive dismissal of their efforts, founded on a vivid evocation of the unbreakable chains of fate that only he could see. Alfonse, like Fjorm, had passed that off as pessimism (though he had then felt the first stirrings of uncertainty). The dragon, abandoned by his own mother, had watched the world wither for time immemorial; the march of millennia, and the future sight his heritage granted him, had ground down any hope for the future he once had carried within him into nothingness.

Thus they had believed, the two of them, that the Rite of Frost would give them the power to slay that monstrous king. And Surtr had indeed been a corpse—for a few moments only. Then the flames had risen and poured themselves into him like molten metal filling a mould, and the King of Múspell had stood, unharmed and unruffled, as though their battle had been a mere fever dream.

It’s not often the Order of Heroes has to flee from battle, thanks to the power they had harvested from other worlds and to Kiran’s skills, but at that point they had had no choice _but_ to flee. To the sound of Surtr’s laughter, they had fled, streaming back along that forest path Fjorm’s younger sister (of whom Alfonse is yet suspicious, because of her knowledge of Kiran’s name, and because of how _easily_ she had accepted them) had pointed out to them. Shamed and beaten, they had retreated.

All that work, all that hardship—the running back and forth from ancient Niflian shrine to ancient Niflian shrine, Kiran’s near death at the hands of Loki—it had all been for naught. _Everything_ the Order had done had been for naught. Because if even the power of the Ice Dragon couldn’t kill Surtr, what could?

There’s only one word for what he is, and in his mind it is his father who gives voice to it: _failure._

Despite the conflict ignited within him by Surtr’s flames of rebirth, Alfonse hadn’t let any of it within him show. No, he’d been the perfect prince: calm and stoic, he’d suggested a return to Askr to see if the palace’s expansive library had any secrets secreted away in the musty depths of its shelves. After all, it was there he discovered the monograph by that dark sorcerer from the World of Blazing—so who knows? Perhaps some ancient papers detailing some forgotten part of the Rite of Frost might slumber within the labyrinth of dark wood.

And so, leaving the bulk of the army behind with its commander, Anna, Alfonse had set out for Askr, accompanied by Kiran, Sharena, and Fjorm, of course, and by Eirika and Priscilla and Sigurd, by Ares and Seliph, by Berkut and Corrin. Enough horses that they could travel faster than on foot, and strong warriors all around—but no one powerful enough that it would cripple the army to have them leave it, such as Grima.

They arrive back in the capital with little fanfare. Some passers-by recognise them for who they are as they wend their way up the cobblestone streets towards the towering spires of the royal palace, and Alfonse does his best to respond to their praises as respectfully as he can, no matter how much they turn his stomach. Because he’s done nothing to merit the adulation of Askr’s people. Just helped Anna lead the Order into pointless war after pointless war. There have indeed been victories, but too few in number to mitigate their utter waste of time in Nifl. No doubt his father, and the other nobles who had criticised him for working with the Order, are sitting cloaked in an aura of smug, I-told-you-so self-righteousness.

After they hand their horses off to the stable hands, Sharena and Fjorm catch him and Kiran before the two of them can make it inside the castle’s halls. Well, it’s more Sharena who does the catching—Fjorm seems to have regressed to the Fjorm he’d known right after the Order had rescued her from Loki’s filthy clutches. Subdued, muzzled by inner turmoil.

Seeing her set, hardened expression makes him feel all the guiltier. He hadn’t just failed Askr or Nifl, he’d also failed one of his friends. He could have ensured that Surtr was well and truly dead, he could have done… _something_ , he’s sure of it. Fólkvangr, according to Kiran, carries its own divine power—mayhap he could have channelled that power, beyond what is normally required of him during battle.

“Alfonse,” Sharena says, “tell me what’s wrong.”

Observant as always, at least when it comes to him. Reasonably enough: they’re siblings. They’ve learned one another’s quirks and eccentricities.

Nevertheless, Alfonse’s reply is mechanical: “It’s nothing.”

But at the look on Sharena’s face, angry and hurt all at once, Alfonse realises that perhaps keeping what currently eats at him to himself may not be the best idea. As awful as he feels, she is still his sister.

“I’m…” he says, “...just reflecting on my failure in Múspell. As I should be.”

“You know it’s not your fault, right?” Sharena says. She steps closer, rests her hand on his arm. “It’s not, Alfonse.”

“That’s not....”

“Your sister speaks the truth,” Fjorm says quietly. She lifts her eyes, eyes which he sees are still a little swollen from crying (when had she cried when they were on the road? How had he not noticed? Another failure—leaving Fjorm to bear her sorrow alone, when he bore some of the blame). “We...did all we could, Prince Alfonse. We availed ourselves of all the weapons we knew of. And still, we…”

Her voice wobbles, and Alfonse seizes the opportunity to direct their attention away from him. “Forgive me, Princess, for bringing up bad memories. Come, let’s go into the palace. Our home is yours—we will ensure you want for nothing, that you might take a few days’ worth of well-deserved rest.”

He gestures for the servants to come take the luggage, and as he expected, Sharena drops the subject, unwilling to try and drag anything out of him in front of them. It’s a low thing to do, he knows, but he’s unwilling to have a deeper conversation about what troubles him now.

Alfonse makes his escape, ushering Kiran into the cool halls of the palace, kept insulated from the summer heat outside by means of complex enchantments worked by court mages. “Let me help you back to your room,” he says to Kiran. “It’s been quite a long time since you’ve used it, hasn’t it.”

Kiran acknowledges the truth of that statement with a nod, but stays quiet. There’s clearly something else on their mind, however—Alfonse can see it in the very slight crease in their brow. He has little doubt that they mean to say something about what he and Sharena had been discussing, and horribly, terribly, he finds himself hoping that their reticence and their inexperience with emotion might preclude them from speaking on it.

Because he’s already ashamed of hiding what he had from Sharena. Of not having the courage to confront what gnawed at him.

Kiran does speak up, though, as they stand in the doorway of their room. “Alfonse,” they say, “are you...well?”

“I’m well enough, for now,” Alfonse says. He hurries on. “Now, I’m sorry to leave you so soon, but I’m hungry, and I’m sure everyone else is, too. I need to go.”

And so he leaves. Abruptly, it’s true. He knows Kiran’s uncertainty will strangle their words until it’s too late; and then because it’s too late, what they wanted to say will expire unsaid in their throat.

=

The rosy light cast across the horizon by the morning of the next day finds Alfonse and Kiran in one of the library reading rooms, surrounded by books Alfonse had pulled from the shelves. Transcripts of ancient histories, anthologies of myths and legends, collections of stories about weapons from other worlds. The work, by Nergal, describing the process of a morph’s creation—he’d kill two birds with one stone, here. Look into how to fight Surtr, and look into how he could, just maybe, help Kiran.

Set on the table to support their work and to gird them for a long day spent in research is a tray of food: an assortment of fruits—light honeydew and candy-sweet melon, knotberries and sour grapefruit—yoghurt, and granola and honey to mix thereinto, should their tastes dictate it. A small wheel of black brie, sharp-smelling and crumbly. A silver pot of coffee, warmed by an enchanted metal charm underneath its belly and exhaling steam from its open mouth, squats next to two mugs and a pitcher of hot milk, all the necessary pieces to prepare café au lait (for Alfonse, in any case—Kiran drinks coffee black).

As Alfonse pours out the coffee, Kiran selects a grapefruit and sets about disembowelling it in their usual precise, measured way. A year and a half ago, they would eat _only_ what was given to them, and would never take food on their own; now, though, they gravitate towards strong, pronounced flavours. Perhaps it has something to do with a fixation on evoking taste, something that Kiran only recently learned to truly appreciate—or perhaps it's merely an expression of preference. No person's peculiarities are traceable to a root cause beyond simple happenstance, after all.

Alfonse passes Kiran their mug of coffee, and takes the opportunity to pose them a question—a question that has been troubling him for a good while now, but one that he hadn’t found the chance to bring up.

“Your master, Kiran,” Alfonse says slowly, as he watches the milk he’d added to his coffee spread out across the midnight surface like tendrils of cloud, “what _is_ he, exactly? A god, you said?”

Kiran clasps the mug of coffee in their pale hands, heedless of the heat radiating from it. “A god,” they concede. “Yes. ...Light is his domain.”

“And he dwells within Breidablik. Is that right?” Alfonse asks, trying to contain the anxiety rising within him. The idea that something _alive_ within the relic has been watching them all, has been perhaps _manipulating_ them through Kiran, guiding the Order according to some unknown purpose…

“Yes.” Kiran says. “He does.”

Alfonse swallows. “And...what does he want?”

“To protect Askr,” Kiran says. “That is, at least, what I was bid to do. Other than that, I…” They hunch a little, as though aware that their answer is not satisfying for Alfonse in the slightest. “I don’t know.”

But then, would any answer that Kiran might give him be satisfying? Their master controls them down to the most essential components of their being—that is one of the basic properties of morphs. It is true that they have worked tirelessly to defend Askr, but other than that, Alfonse knows nothing for certain. Even Kiran’s ‘I don’t know’ could just be a non-answer fed to them by their master in an attempt to dissuade Alfonse from probing further.

Kiran’s master’s motives are impenetrable, and they will remain so until he sees fit to elucidate them. Alfonse cannot question a divine relic, and questioning Kiran gives him what might be everything or might be nothing.

It’s...terrifying, really. To have a divine relic he once thought benevolent be revealed as something that may well be not.

Alfonse’s eyes fall upon the work by Nergal, and then they go wide. _Quintessence._ So many soldiers had died in these two wars that Askr had been engaged in—and Kiran’s master is a god without a body. And he had already shown his ability to work quintessence with Kiran’s creation. Could it be? Could these wars…?

And if...if Kiran’s master has the ability to reach out and control so _much_ , to speak in Kiran’s mind even bound within Breidablik, then...this war with Embla, the _voice_ that Zacharias—no, Bruno—claimed to hear when his identity had finally been revealed, the voice that demanded he hurt the Askran royals…could it all be—?

“Alfonse?” Kiran asks. “What’s...? You look...”

Alfonse lets out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding in a great rush, and tries to master himself. This hysterical speculation is just that: hysterical. Absurd. Baseless, groundless… Besides, Kiran—or their master, speaking through them—said the gods could simply be freed. Then there’s no need for Kiran’s master to construct a body; he could have simply used Kiran to coax one of the Askran royals into freeing him, however that might work.

(Which, of course, conveniently ignores the fact that Kiran’s master’s situation seems to be altogether _different_ from the other gods.)

“It is...difficult to come to terms with the fact that Breidablik is not what I believed it to be,” Alfonse says, which is mostly true. “That's all. It’s really nothing,” he adds, and deep down he knows that’s meant more for himself than for Kiran.

Kiran surrenders, as Alfonse knew they would, and turns back to their food. Alfonse dips a piece of brie in his coffee, and as he starts to eat, he props open one of the books with his other hand. The conversation is over; what concerns them now is research, research, research.

=

Come nine hours later, they have nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Alfonse expected it, but at the same time, he hadn’t. At the same time, he’d hoped, he’d _prayed_ for something that might help them stand up against the cruel ruler of Múspell. But following the threads laid out by Askran and Emblian myths led him nowhere, and the tales of weapons from other worlds offered no solutions, no matter how many times he picked over the words, written in ink faded and warped by age.

As for Kiran? Nothing there, as well. Nergal himself had been a sorcerer whose powers had so far outstripped the power of today’s mages that it’s doubtful they could replicate anything laid out in his work—and that ignores the moral issue of re-purposing enemy or ally corpses in order to repair Kiran (which he wasn’t even sure was possible; Nergal suggested it might be so, but all he had written on the matter was simply ‘Deconstruct and build anew’).

Askr had, since its foundation, granted its enemies the honour of being able to bury their soldiers with dignity, so why should they withdraw that boon now? Besides, the idea of it—to feed off of the death these terrible wars had brought to Zenith—is a distasteful one, even if it may very well be impossible for them to implement.

Gods. Yet another promise he might renege on. But from what he can see, there’s no other way to save Kiran besides butchering a corpse. Kiran’s master can’t or won’t do it (Alfonse had asked Kiran, of course), and so that is all Alfonse is left with. Prince become gravedigger.

It’s with these thoughts constricting him that he goes to dinner.

He doesn’t stay long, as a matter of fact, because of Sharena. While he and Kiran had been sitting with their noses in a book all day, _she_ had apparently decided it would be appropriate to drag Fjorm into town to go shopping.

It annoys him. He can’t deny it. Sitting by as Sharena chatters on about this clothing shop or that sweet shop—doesn’t she _realise_ the gravity of the situation?

(Fjorm’s smiling at it all, he can’t deny that either—and maybe that’s a good thing. But still…)

He decides to excuse himself early, in hopes that he might avoid saying something he’ll regret. He brushes off Sharena’s question with a brusque “I’m tired—going to bed”, and leaves the dining room, Sharena’s confused, and yes, undeniably hurt look dogging his every step.

Lost in uncharitable thoughts, he loses himself too in the castle halls, and only realises where he is when he recognises the door he’s passing.

It’s to Zacharias’ room. Bruno’s room.

Neither he nor anyone else has been in that room since Bruno left the Order. Left _him_. Left Sharena, left Anna...abandoned the very people who had taken him in. Without a single damn word. Even now, looking at that door conjures up an echo of the pain he’d felt upon discovering that Bruno had disappeared.

Alfonse puts his hand on the knob, but then pauses. What reason would he have to go in now? There’s no point in reopening old wounds.

But then again, Zacharias had been hiding something as monumental as the fact he was a prince of Embla. And he’d disappeared while the Order had been out on an expedition in another world. So perhaps something yet remains in his room, something he had not had a chance to hide or dispose of before his disappearance. What that something might be, though Alfonse has no idea. Some research about Bruno’s cursed blood? Some information about Breidablik?

Well, there’s only one way to find out.

Cautiously, Alfonse opens the door. He feels his way to a lamp, and lights that with the small cantrip he’d learned from Lilina so long ago, before he recognised that his magical talent was so very limited.

It’s clear that the servants had left this room alone, as ordered (he’d cited a wish to go through Bruno’s things before they cleaned, but had never gotten around to doing it, shying away from the memories that might conjure up). The bed is still unmade, and he raises a plume of dust when he ties up a curtain to admit some of the golden evening light into the room.

He looks around—at the messy bed, at the small desk in the corner with the chair not quite pushed under it, at the small mirror and washbasin Bruno had used to shave. Yes, here they are, the memories he’d so feared; ghosts of the past rising up to suffocate him.

Alfonse takes a breath. In. Out. It’s all right, he tells himself. It’s all right.

And then he gets to work.

The dressers have nothing, and neither does the space under the bed, and the desk? All Alfonse finds there is a mask, twin of the one Bruno had worn when he wanted to hide his identity from them, and a half-written note of apology in familiar sprawling handwriting. He’d always liked Bruno’s handwriting—surprisingly elegant, composed of rounded edges and billowing curlicues and flourishes. Befitting one born into court life, as a matter of fact. Mayhap that should have alerted him to the fact that Zacharias was not entirely what he seemed.

He reads the note, but there’s nothing life-changing in it. Just something about Bruno’s cursed blood—which he had told them about personally—and how Bruno had nearly done something unforgivable to Alfonse, once, as Alfonse slept. Alfonse registers this fact, and the implication that Bruno came within a hair's breadth of killing him, coolly, distantly, as though he’s looking at it from kilometres away through a telescope.

No way to defeat Surtr, no way to save Askr, and no way to save Kiran. No way to save Bruno, either, whom he hadn’t seen for months and months and months. Nothing, again. Always nothing. 

Something in him goes weak, then, and suddenly everything is very much _not all right_. He sits down hard on the bed, and the paper on which Bruno had written his note crumples as his trembling hands clench into fists. Things go blurry, like he’s underwater, like he’s drowning (like Askr and Nifl will soon do, in a sea of flame), so he closes his eyes while he fights to breathe. He can't quite get a full breath, like his lungs are filling with water, like some giant fist has wrapped around his chest and started to _squeeze._

He’s running out of time. _Everyone’s_ running out of time. _Where had all the time gone?_

What is he supposed to do? What _can_ he do? He’s just a failure—he can’t fix anything. Can’t save anyone. Can’t save Kiran. Can’t save Bruno. Can’t save Askr, or Nifl, or—

Everyone is going to die. Everyone’s going to die and he can’t do a thing about it.

“Alfonse,” a voice says, and he jolts violently. The sensation of a cool hand on his cheek guides him momentarily back to normality.

“Kiran,” Alfonse says unsteadily. For of course it’s them, small and fragile without their cloak. “W–What are you…?”

Kiran sits next to him on the bed, close enough that their arms brush against each other. They say, “Sharena wanted to talk to you. She checked your room, but...so I…”

“...You knew I’d be here?” Alfonse asks, trying and mostly failing to inject his voice with some sort of humour.

Kiran lifts a shoulder in a sort-of shrug. “Suspected. Not knew.”

“Oh.” Alfonse stares at his hands, realising they’re still wound tight into fists, and forces them to relax, exposing a balled-up letter and palms scored with nail marks. “What did...what did Sharena want?”

“She said you might be…” and here, Kiran pauses, and then enunciates cautiously, “bellyaching.”

“Bellyaching, huh,” Alfonse says. He sneers. “So, am I not allowed to be vulnerable for one godsdamned second? _Bellyaching_ ,” he spits. “I can’t believe her.”

Even as he says the words, he recognises how cruel they are. It’s just Sharena’s way of speaking—informal, easygoing. It doesn’t mean she worries about him any less.

And yet, he couldn’t stop himself. Surtr, Bruno, Kiran—taken separately, he could bear the weight of each of them. But together, they bear down on him until he crumbles beneath the burden.

“Does she even realise the danger we face? Our entire country is at risk of destruction—our parents could die next month at Surtr’s hands. She could see _Fjorm_ die the next time we face Múspell in battle. And yet, she...and yet, she…”

Alfonse stops himself then, because his composure is again teetering on a knife’s edge. He takes a breath, then another. He has to hold himself together. He has to be strong. For the others, but mostly for Kiran. He has always been there for them, to guide them through their difficult times. He can’t fall apart. He _can’t._

“Alfonse.”

Kiran reaches over and pulls Alfonse’s hands into their own.

“It’s all right,” they say.

And it’s not a platitude, but permission, which is all Alfonse needs to weep. So he does, breath hitching quietly as the tears roll down his cheeks. He weeps for Kiran, for Fjorm and all she’s lost, for the hopelessness of this misbegotten war; he weeps for himself and Sharena, too: a prince and a princess with too much resting on their young shoulders.

“I don’t know what to _do_ , Kiran,” Alfonse says when he’s together enough to speak through his tears. “I don’t...I can’t…”

Is this what Kiran feels, when their master takes control? So utterly, agonisingly powerless? He hates it.

“I’m so useless. I make all these promises and I can never keep them! And to think I lectured you about...when I can’t even succeed in doing one _godsdamned_ thing—”

His voice dies in his throat as Kiran takes their hands from his and then tucks their arms around his neck. They pull him in.

“No,” they say. “You’re not useless.”

“Right,” Alfonse sniffles. “You would say that.”

“Because you helped me,” Kiran says. “You...never gave up on me.”

Alfonse swallows. It’s a one-two punch of emotion—the second blow being, of course, what Kiran had just said to him, which is probably the closest thing he’s ever going to get to an affirmation, spoken, declared, _put to words_ , that Kiran feels just the same as he does.

“I couldn’t,” he says quietly. “Because…”

“I know,” Kiran says. They pull back a little, and when their golden eyes meet his, Alfonse sees _determination_. “And this is not a failure. _Death_ is failure. We can keep fighting, until the very end. That is what I was made to do. So don’t...don’t say you’re useless. You’re not.”

Kiran takes a breath. They open their mouth. They look away. And finally: “You’re...everything to me.”

After a moment, their hand comes up to touch Alfonse’s cheek, damp again with tears. “...I’m sorry,” they say. “I’ve made you...again…”

Alfonse catches their hand with his own, and gives them a watery smile. “No, it’s okay,” he says. “It’s the good kind of crying, I swear. Because I think that’s—that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

He tucks a lock of Kiran’s hair behind their ear, and lets his rough palm settle on the smooth, frigid skin of their cheek. For a crystalline moment, the two of them sit frozen like that, linked by touch.

And then Alfonse leans in. He’s not entirely prepared for what it feels like, to kiss Kiran properly for the first time: their lips are cold, and it makes him shiver, and the emptiness of it, how it lacks that essential spark of warmth from true emotion, unsettles him. But the attempt at the sentiment is there, and that, though not nearly as much as Alfonse wants, is enough.

He sees a chance to forget, for a little while, all the things troubling him. And he takes it, gladly. Because there will be tomorrow; and tomorrow, like Kiran said, he can take up his sword again to fight on against the oncoming storm.

But for now, he can forget it all. Just for a little while.

**Author's Note:**

> Alfonse had to break down someday, in the face of all this. At least they finally kissed in this one!


End file.
